Week 11

Welcome to week eleven! This week’s theme is: Halloween!

Students who are participating in the Book It! Program can return their October reading calendars any time after Wednesday to receive their coupons for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. Calendars for November will be coming home Tuesday.

Our November Field Trip is this Friday November 2nd!  We will be going on a special “in-house” field trip for November.  The fifth graders will be putting on a special performance of “Flat Stanley.”  The second graders have been reading all about Flat Stanley during our reading class. Nothing is required of parents for this trip, but feel free to let us know if you would like to see the play with us.  Second graders will be watching the play during our regular reading class on Friday first period at 8:30 in the elementary music room. It should last about 30 minutes.

The Take-Home Book bags are getting started.  Thank you to all the parents who helped stuff bags this week.  “Thank you” to all the parents who signed off the title and reading minutes.  Mrs. Slade’s class did not send home new books for the weekend, but we will resume next week.  Remember to send Take-Home book bags to school each morning.

Here is a look at what we are learning this week:

Art: Students will continue working on their student directed art projects using mediums such as collage, pastels, paper construction, and water color.

ASL:    We are reviewing the signs for the idea nouns in the Pledge of Allegiance: signing, word mapping, and drawing pictures of things that come to mind when we say “allegiance,” “liberty,” and “justice”.  Discuss this with your child and help them think of things.

Dance:  Students will continue working on their "Thriller" dance in honor of Halloween.

Health: Students will discuss harmful and helpful substances.

Math: Students will be studying temperature.

Music: Rhythm and bells, lyrics and so me notes

PE: Students are working on their Presidential Fitness by running or walking laps of our school. Second Grade has already run 100 miles this school year! We hope to make it to 200 miles by Thanksgiving.  As the weather gets bad we will have indoor recess whenever it is snowing or raining or freezing.  Pease have your children dressed for weather as we will go out in the cold, clear, crisp air this winter!

Reading:  Large Group Phonics: Digraphs ie, ue, Small Group Phonics: Vowel + ce and ge, Shared Reading: Nature Walk “Owls,” Guided Reading by leveled groups, Centers (SSR, iPods, Computers, Partner reading

Science: Students will begin studying animals and their habitats.

Social Studies: Students will finish up their study of the continents

Spanish: Students will continue to review the numbers in Spanish and begin learning the vocabulary for clothing.

Writing:

• Writing: Hand writing with Mrs. P: Students will be learning the penmanship of lowercase “e,” and will be working on letter size and placement.  
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• Composition with Mrs. P: During composition time students will begin writing biographies of a classmate or writing an auto-biography.

• Spelling with Mrs. S: Students are grouped by levels and engage in Words Their Way sorting activities.  Students sort words into categories by sounds patterns according to their present level of functioning.

• Sentence Fundamentals with Mrs. S:: Students will continue their study of PENSMARK, a self-regulating strategy developed to teach sentence fundamentals: capital letters, end marks, making sense, simple sentence formulas, and subject/ verb identification. PENSMARK is a mnemonic device that stands for Pick a formula, Explore words to fit the formula, Note the words, Search and Check, Mark out the imposters, Ask “Is there a verb?”, Root out the subject, and Key in on the beginning, middle, and end. Everyone has mastered the three requirements of a complete sentence: Capital letter, End mark, and “Makes sense.” Now we are working on the prerequisite skills for identifying subject nouns and verbs:  the five types of nouns: person, place, thing, quality, and idea;  and the two types of action verbs: mind (ex. think) and body (ex. jump). Please reinforce this at home.  We are referencing quality nouns from the Scout law and writing the noun form of  each quality (trustworthiness, loyalty, helpfulness, friendliness, courtesy, kindness, obedience, cheerfulness, thriftiness, bravery, or courage, cleanliness, and reverence.).  We are drawing idea nouns from our The Pledge of Allegiance (allegiance, liberty, justice, republic) and from our school discipline policy (anarchy, bullying, cooperation, democracy).  Talk about these ideas and qualities with your children, and think of your own family qualities and ideas.  Make your own T-charts for your home values and practice using these nouns as the subject of simple sentences as you talk.  For example, “Trustworthiness helps our family work together.” By using nouns that the children are learning in other settings, the concepts are reinforced across the curriculum, and children can begin to generalize the skills outside the classroom.